


Finding Again

by KhanmiR1



Series: After the Board [1]
Category: The Outer Worlds (Video Game)
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Assassination, Bombs, Conspiracy, Espionage, Eventual Romance, F/M, Kidnapping, Killing, Minor Violence, Poisoning, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:35:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22769410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KhanmiR1/pseuds/KhanmiR1
Summary: It's been months since Victoria has seen Phineas. After Tarterus, he went his own way and she went hers. But a job brings them together again and this time will be harder to let go.
Relationships: The Captain/Phineas Welles
Series: After the Board [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1637065
Kudos: 10





	1. Mansion

**Author's Note:**

> This story wont be too long, but it is the start to a series of stories featuring Victoria and Phineas. I hope you like slow build ups.

The moon was round and bright, helping Victoria along the shadows. She stuck close to a row of manicured shrubbery to her left, avoiding the wide walkway on the other side. Guards patrolled along the wall of brush, but it was easy enough getting passed them. They each had their own linear path. With enough patience, it was child's play to see when an opening presented itself. And Victoria started the night early, so a fair cushion of time meant careful execution. No mistakes made so far, and she didn't have plans to make any at all. She was cunning and safe with her decisions. Without any stumbles, she made record time through the manse. Finally, her prize lie just behind a set of French doors. 

Cornelius Tremain, owner of the largest fueling Depot and avid supporter of the Board's successor, the Committee. He was a fine gentleman on paper. When it came to his off record habits however, he walked the grey side. Power in business coincidentally meant power in politics. One by one the Board's leaders had fallen, and in the ashes of their crumbled facade came the Committee. Cornelius was it's newest member, known only from a whistleblower who had enough of their mistreatment under his tutelage. They were able to get only a single memoir out to a few individuals on the Groundbreaker. In turn, black market suppliers got a hold of the information and sold the Committee member's identity and accompanying information to the highest buyer; a person known as Foxtrot. 

Fox contacted Victoria one evening while she was enjoying a quiet rest on the Unreliable. She was sidled in her usual corner of the mess hall, coffee cup in one hand and data pad in the other. A small chime brought her attention to a new message. Fox offered her a handsome reward in exchange for this politician's life. The sooner she got it done, the better. Perhaps it was that she was alone on the ship and bored. Maybe it was that she hadn't had a proper job in months. Whatever fueled her fire, burned for her to start immediately. So she found herself on the unoccupied end of Terra 2, away from prying eyes. Cornelius's mansion was large and lonely, overlooking a valley beneath it that stretched for miles. Reaching it was a hassle and took the better part of 2 hours. 

After such slow buildup, the culmination of the evening ended her here, at his literal doorstep. She couldnt see through the frosted glass of the French doors, but was delighted to notice that the window in the room brought just enough light to make out each shadow inside. She noticed Cornelius's form moving from one end to another of the room. He appeared to be holding something. Then, abruptly, he moved to the opposite end and opened a door. He stepped through and his shadow disappeared with the click of the door behind him. How lucky! Victoria cracked open one side of the French door, pinching her thigh all the while to make sure she wasn't dreaming. This was too easy. Out of habit she dusted off the bottoms of her shoes for any stray pebbles that might make noise when she stepped. Silently, she crept across the room to his desk. There was a cup next to a few papers. One letter read "manifesto" along the top and she let out a scoff at the thought. He must be so full of himself. Leaving that idiotic piece of writing be, her hand quickly grabbed a key card and tucked it into her shirt. That would come in handy later.

Victoria then reached down to a vial at her waist and unscrewed the cap. As she poured it's powdery contents into the drink on his desk, she wondered if he would feel his death coming to him. In no time at all, her job was done and she moved back through the French doors and into the corridor. She waited just in the shadows to make sure her prey returned. As she had suspected, it must have been a bathroom in the next room. There was a flush and the sound of a faucet running. Then, the door opened and Cornelius stepped through and straight to the desk. For a moment there weren't any sounds after he sat, but then Victoria heard the familiar clack of the setting down of a glass and she smiled and turned away from the door.

Returning back the way she came might prove unwise, so Victoria opted for exiting the mansion out the rear. She rounded a corner that lead opposite from the entry, and was surprised by a soft glow emmitting from her feet. She took a gentle step and watched the light from her back foot fade as the foot in front burst in color. That rich bastard. It was an excessive show of wealth by Cornelius, to have the tiles react in color to people walking on it. Victoria wondered how much it truly cost to have these walls lined with gold and the floors lined with LED interfaces. How worth it was it now that he was doomed? Soon it wouldn't matter. He would be dead in roughly half an hour. When the powder in his drink flowed through his bloodstream and pumped into his heart, her mission would be complete. She couldn't help the smirk that formed on her lips at the thought of her simply waltzing out after her dastardly deed.

A few more turns, and the building would come to a stop in the rear with a large door. All she needed to do was disengage the lock with her swiped keycard and she would be homefree. It proved easy enough. With a hiss and a series of clicks, the gears bumped inside the door to lift the inner latches. The twilight moon peaked through the widening crack of the massive door as it swung heavily open. Victoria closed her eyes for a second as she took a deep breath of the cool night air. A distinct click of a gun being racked a few feet in front of her woke her from her respite. Armed men dressed all in black surrounded her way out, and nothing stood between the ends of their weapons and her. She stood lucidly in the grand opening, wondering if they had dispatched the guards out front, or if they were all oblivious to the gathering in the back. She let out a small but exasperated sigh. It had been a long night; one she thought was soon to be over. By the looks of it now, it had only just begun.

A mere minute before, the hallways felt comfortingly quiet and the air she had walked outside to washed over her like a refreshing blanket. Now, Victoria was standing in a nightmare. Strangers surrounding her with their eyes trained on her form; a bubble of unnease flipped her stomach over. No one should have known about her. How, then were there so many of them? Did they know she had already succeeded? A smile appeared back on her lips as she extended her arms in front of her. The pistol in her right hand fell limp around her finger and the key card in her other hand fluttered to the ground softly. If they were going to kill her, they would have done so already. Someone wanted her alive. In a gesture of good faith, she kept her hands in front. They would speak when they were ready. She wasn't in any rush now.

"Alex Hawthorne," a woman's voice called out from behind the row of men. It was too dark to make out any facial features, but every once in a while Victoria could see a silhouette walking between the stationary ones. She squinted her eyes in a vain attempt to see better. The flashlights trained on her didn't help in the slightest. The woman continued. 

"I've been wondering when I would finally meet your aquiantance. Our dealings haven't been so...personal." Victoria raised an eyebrow with the realization of her identity. The liason that had issued this job to her in the first place; could it be her? 

"Foxtrot?" 

"Good guess, Alex. Foxtrot is under my leadership. I make the rules around here. He simply...issues them to our contacts."  
There was a pause in the footsteps along with her words. Like she was waiting for a grand surprised reaction. But Victoria offered none, and was getting impatient.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of meeting you then?"

"I like a straightforward attitude. I have a job for you. One that demands your attention. Should you accept, we will take you there personally!"

"And if I refuse?" Victoria offered despite knowing the answer. 

The steps continued once more. "I don't think you'll want to refuse."

There were only two things that response could indicate. The first being the most obvious; if she said no, they would kill her on the spot. That was out of the question. The second was that they believed they had leverage against her, forcing her to go along with them to keep whatever or whomever safe. What could they possibly have against her? Victoria could list on one hand the things that they could have possession of that would make her tick. Her favorite rifle; she was carrying it. The locket her mother gave her; she was wearing it. And was that it? She wasn't a very material person. Anything she truly cared about, she carried with her. And Victoria made it a point in her life in Halcyon to always travel light. But she had worked with enough seedy individuals and organizations to know they did have some kind of leverage. This kind of show they pulled off here tonight wasn't just to prove their power. This was pure confidence. They _knew_ they had something against her. 

Something that would make her squirm to know they acquired. Which, for her, it wouldn't be a something. It would be a someone.

Phineas.

They had Phineas.


	2. Nuclioid Diffusion

"You want me to...disarm a bomb?" Victoria asked incredulously. She sat in the bay of a shuttle, strapped into the seat as they hovered around what appeared to be a large command center. She heard the man across from her scoff.

"When you say it like that, it sounds demeaning for someone of your talents." 

"Don't try to butter me up. I just don't understand why you need _me_ for this. Your organization obviously has highly trained personnel. Send one of them to do it."

"Boss wanted to recruit you for the job. We don't question her motives."

That much was very clear to Victoria. She had hesitantly agreed when they cornered her after her last job. And as they took her into their custody, they had blindfolded her like she was a prisoner. 'So as not to give away our strategic placement in the system' the mystery woman had said. So she didn't know if she was playing for the bad guys or not. They seemed friendly enough with her given the circumstances, but they still didn't reveal what they had over her head. She figured as much. But Victoria would find out one way or another. 

"So once we land at the docking bay, we will inform security that we are there to help. You will be known as our specialist in nuclioid diffusion-"

"Bomb diffusion."

"-And that they are in good hands, namely you. We don't want to rouse any chaos by having a whole group of us in there at once. They should then provide you with a keycard to get you through the complex. All we have to go off of is that the nuclioid hasn't been found yet, so it must be in a remote location in this center. Someplace that doesn't have heavy traffic. You'll take this bag with you, and comm us when you've started disarming the nuclioid."

"Bomb." Victoria corrected. She risked a small smile when he sent her a glare.

"Whatever you choose to call it, it is dangerous and might be on a timer."

"Okay, you still aren't telling me the important parts of this. Like why I'm going in alone? And if I'll meet any resistance there." This job was becoming increasingly suspicious to Victoria. It stunk of a set-up, whether by this mystery woman and her gang, or by some other wack jobs.

"We received word of this through our covert information channel. You know him as Foxtrot. It sounds like a terrorist organization is behind this. And word around the system is that you're good at fighting your way out of things." The man crossed his arms almost triumphantly at his explanation. "Besides, we will be waiting at the docking bay for extraction. So you won't technically be alone."

"But I'll be alone enough so that you can make a clean getaway if I'm compromised." She watched him wearily for any sort of affirmation. He nodded curtly at her and looked out the window. She was right. 

They touched down to a nearly desolate landing zone. Workers seemed few and far between, to the point where the shuttle wasn't greeted by anyone in particular. Victoria stepped onto the platform leisurely while her male counterpart moved with purpose towards the customs area. He was flagging down an official looking individual. While they spoke quietly to eachother, Victoria took in her surroundings.

Besides being practically void of personnel, the docking bay itself was eerily quiet. No other ships were parked in the hangar and large crates littered the floor from one wall to the other. If a terrorist organization wanted to infiltrate this place, it seemed like there would be plenty of opportunity to do so. Many places to hide behind, and quite a few entry points from the hangar to other parts of the command center. And not a single guard standing by any of the doors. Victoria reached to her side and then her back as a reflex, making sure her pistol and rifle were still there. She mentally went through the number of ammo packs she had on her person, and remembered with slight annoyance that she didn't have time to restock her supply for the rifle. No guards meant no back up if she needed it. So her ammo would have to be used sparingly.

But Victoria wasn't an idiot without a plan. Taking a peek at the other two, she noticed they were engrossed in conversation. Perfect. Quick as a wip, she rolled up her sleeve to reveal a patch of velcro with a tiny microchip attached to it. It was a thing of beauty now that she had an opportunity to use it. Ada would be happy once she got a signal from it. Homing devices certainly weren't something Victoria was used to, but she'd learned in her time in Halcyon that if an AI offers you piece of technology, you take it. It will either come in handy for you later or be worth a pretty penny on the Groundbreaker. She placed the device on the back side of a particularly grungy looking container. It appeared forgotten about, and she said a small prayer for that trend to continue while she was inside. If Foxtrot's company didn't provide proper getaway when she was done, Ada would be at her doorstep in no time. Happy with her hiding spot for it, she turned and walked towards customs, racking her pistol in preparation.

"Ah, here she is now." 

"Ms. Hawthorne, it's good to meet you. I'm told you're the one helping us today with our... Security breach."

"Yep, I will indeed be helping. Before I begin, how did you come to find out about this breach?" She registered a small glance between the security personnel and her handler. Interesting.

"Well, you see, we actually received some very serious and threatening messages about this. However our facility has a particular clearance level, so we would rather have this dealt with privately first before reaching out to the Committee. You know, no media attention this way." 

"Did they say what they want or why they did it?" Her question seemed to stump him for a moment.

"As far as I know, no. They only mentioned the bomb and that we have a certain amount of time to find it-"

A time limit? "Wait, how much time?" Victoria couldn't help but feel like she was being set up for failure. 

"24 hours. The message was received 13 hours ago."

She inwardly cursed. That was not a lot of time at all, especially when she had no idea where it was in the first place, and also she had never diffused a bomb before. An engineering degree only got her so far, the rest she always had Phineas' help with. Victoria's stomach dropped to her knees. She hoped they weren't hurting him. If he was safe or dead, she had positively no idea yet. Maybe she could find a terminal no one was using inside to search his whereabouts. 

She was about to turn towards one of the many doors in the hangar when the security tech stuttered. "One more thing, Ms Hawthorne. If the keycard doesn't open a door, it means you don't have clearance for that room."

She gave a slow nod and left through the closest door.

Once on the other side, Victoria released a breath she didn't know she was holding. Something was very strange about this scenario. And what sort of place was this, that they would allow a specialist access to some rooms but not all? Her eyes narrowed in suspicion as realization hit her. Someone wanted her here specifically, and it might not even be for a bomb. They had given her a keycard that allowed access to specific areas of this base. Who was to say which room the bomb was in if they didn't know about it? She holstered her pistol and grabbed her rifle instead. A gut feeling was never something she ignored, and this one was a doozy. 

Each doorway she came to and each corner she rounded began with her pointing the rifle all around the room, scanning for anything unusual. The place was mostly dark and conveniently empty. A few lights flickered above her and illuminated a terminal on one end of this particular room. Victoria paused to think of the repercussions of using it. There was no guarantee she would find anything about Phineas as it might be just an internal access point, rather than something with outside communication protocols. It was also very possible the people at this facility were working closely with her mystery boss lady, which meant they were likely watching her every move. But her hacking skills were good, and they should have known that. It was worth the risk.

She walked up to the screen and pulled a lever on the side to bring out the keyboard. It was dusty. She held the power button until the screen came to life and waited for it to load. The terminal was slow and it felt as if she were in some derelict research lab. The menu finally came on screen and prompted her to enter a password. Child's play. Expertly, she held a few keys down and pressed another key to pull up the subroutine menu. All it took was a few lines of code and she had access to all this terminal had to offer. Victoria almost laughed upon seeing it was virtually nothing. Just 2 entries on file. She clicked on the first one.

_The first package has arrived successfully. Foxtrot notified us of the contents, and it was interesting to say the least. We placed that one in room K14 for safe keeping. Though, we aren't sure how long we have to hold onto it. I was told I needed to write this stuff down somewhere...so that's what I'm doing. I've lost the actual manifest where I would normally be annotating this. My job will be gone soon._

Victoria looked up at the doorway to the room she was in. Room H12. She was close to this 'first package'. Next file, dated a full month after.

_They still don't know about the manifest... I'm starting to get nervous. Anyway, second package arrived today. This one was...alarming. I'm not sure how detailed I should be here. H14 for that one. It feels like we're being punished. They said a specialist was coming in a few days. And they're about to lock everything down. I'm being moved to a different office tomorrow so I'm hoping no one sees this. I'll have to find a way to make a new manifest. And password protect this computer._

H14 was just across the hall. What was in that room that made this worker so anxious? It seemed to be worse than what was put in room K14. Before she could find out, her comm buzzed.

"Hawthorne, come in."

"I'm here."

"We were able to scan the facility. We're getting suspicious readings from room K14. I think that's our nuclioid." 

"Copy." She switched her comm back off and paused, stumped. They were quite obviously watching her. This had to be some sort of... Test. She walked into the hallway and peered through her rifle scope down the hall. K14 was at the end of it. She glanced back at H14. It looked completely sealed up, and the card reader was red. Her keycard probably wouldn't work on it. She tried swiping it. It buzzed angrily at her. But something important was in there. She could hack it, but it would take a while. Then, remembering that when she arrived the worker said they had 8 hours left to find it, she went back into the room and grabbed the terminal. It slid like it's wheels were shaped like squares, and when she finally got it close enough to the door, the hallway was eerily quiet once again. She reached into a pocket on her thigh and pulled out a cord. One end plugged snuggly into the terminal, and the other was shaped like a keycard, but with a flat piece at one end of it. It sat in the keycard machine on the door, sitting in the reader portion while the terminal chimed that it was reading an external device. Victoria backed it out of the entries she read and back into the subroutine menu. She typed in a few different lines of code and wasn't surprised when the card reader buzzed again. This one would be harder to crack.

~~~

On the viewing side of a CCTV screen, a woman paced back and forth. 

"She's trying to get into H14. Does she know what's in there?"

"Not that we know of. The terminal she found only had a few entries in it about the different rooms."

"And you had Delta call in to tell her that we found the bomb in K14?"

"Yes."

"So why is she trying so hard to get into this one?" The woman asked mostly to herself. She crossed her arms to watch with curiosity at her actions.

She suddenly made a decision with a sly smile. "I think we need to motivate her to get to that bomb."

"Sure. What should I have Delta say?"

"I think she knows that Delta was being suspicious. She might even know that we planted it. But she obviously thinks she has enough time to find what's in this room and also get to the bomb." She glanced over at her lackey to see if realization had hit him yet. It did.

"How do you want us to notify her of the timer change?"

The woman's eyes narrowed maniacally. "We're done pretending. Tell her over the loud speaker what kind of experiment this is."

The man pushed a button on the other end of his panel. There was a blast of feedback from the mic, and then it was ready to accept input. 

"Attention Alex Hawthorne. As you might already know, this is a test. However, the consequences are very real. There are 300 workers still on this facility. The nuclioid is active and now set to blow in 15 minutes. It will destroy this place and everyone in it. Room K14 is unlocked for you. Room H14 however, has your personal belonging in it. Choose wisely."


End file.
